Green Monday

According to BoxOfficeMojo.com., three movies -- Avatar, Alvin & The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel and Sherlock Holmes -- made history yesterday. Seriously: All three were added to the list of all-time top-grossers on a non-holiday Monday. And here the's really mind-boggling part: The lowest-grossing of the trio still managed to grab the No. 13 spot. In other words, throughout the entire history of motion pictures, only twelve other movies ever made more money on non-holiday Monday than.... Well, it's elementary. (And, mind you, two of those movies were Avatar.)

What's this? Sherlock Holmes tangling with a dinosaur?

It's elementary: Those wild and crazy guys over at The Asylum are at it again. Brian Rafferty of Wired has taken a close look at the company that will give us Sherlock Holmes -- no, not that one, this one -- and previously gave us Snakes on a Train and Transmorphers. Such low-budget, direct-to-video knock-offs have come to be known as mockbusters. But Rafferty is not of a mind to be too critical of them. "While mockbusting may seem disreputable," he writes, "it’s merely an extension of the sort of cultural cannibalization that fuels the entertainment and media industries. Every hit property, whether it’s American Idol or Twilight or Harry Potter, spurs its own parallel economy, a nebulous cosmos of TV specials and publications that attempt to dry-hump the zeitgeist for all it’s worth. Some of these efforts are subtler than others — putting a sitcom star on a magazine cover, for example — but all take advantage of a cultural momentum they didn’t create. In the end, is there really much difference between the Asylum’s Da Vinci Treasure and the countless unsanctioned Da Vinci Code TV specials, books, and tours?"

It's elementary: Dressed to Kill

As we await, with equal measures of eagerness and trepidation, Guy Ritchie's revisionist reboot of Sherlock Holmes, I thought it might be fun to take a nostalgic look back at Basil Rathbone's distinctive portrayal of the Baker Street sleuth before seeing what Robert Downey Jr. has done with (or to) Arthur Conan Doyle's character. While you watch Rathbone do the deducting in Dressed to Kill, see if you can spot any signs to support the provocative new theory that Holmes may have been... bipolar.

Poster sighting: Sherlock Holmes

I must admit, my expectations rose for the new Sherlock Holmes movie when I learned who'd be involved on both sides of the camera. But this teaser poster... Well, let's just say those expectations have been lowered. Slightly.